By Edmound Tetteh
The role of ‘sustainable governance’ in stemming some of the turbulence in the world is the focus of a 3-day mid-term Conference of the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa, MIASA, in Accra.
MIASA is an institute of the College of Humanities of the University of Ghana.
The Conference themed “Sustainable Governance In a time of Global Flux: Concepts and Future Directions”, will form the basis of a wide-ranging academic exercise and discussions on governance across the world, particularly in Africa.
Participants are mainly academics, scholars, Students, Advisory Board Members of MIASA from Ghana and Germany.
Under the leadership of two Directors, one in Ghana and the other in Germany, MIASA is based on a collaboration with four German partners, that is the University of Freiburg, the Goethe Institute, Frankfurt, the German Institute for Global Area Studies, and the German Historical Institute in Paris.
MIASA is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with co-funding from the University of Ghana. Welcoming the participants, MIASA Director at the University of Ghana, Dr. Grace Diabah, said the Institute is committed to increasingly highlighting the relevance of African thinking in the global academic world through its fellowships and Conference programmes.
Dr. Susan Baller, who serves as MIASA Director in Germany, said sustainable Governance leads to sustainable peace.
Main speaker for the first plenary session of the Conference, Mozambican academic Professor Elisio Macamo, dilated extensively on the need to imbibe morality in answering some difficult governance issues, particularly if governance is to be sustainable. He said if the moral angle of governance is pursued, it might make governance sustainable.
Other Speakers at the function were the German Ambassador to Ghana, Dr. Daniel Krull, Dr. Christine Norvig from the German Federal Ministry of Education, and the Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Gordon Awandare.
